NOW ON DVD: « July 2007 | Main | September 2007 »
Next to Star Trek, it would be difficult to find a 40-year-old franchise that has shown the kind of durability that Dan Curtis’ Dark Shadows has. A phenomenon during its original 1966-71, the daytime soap opera introduced audiences to the Gothic world of vampires, werewolves, witches and more, and made fans of millions, including actor Johnny Depp, who recently announced he would be playing vampire Barnabas Collins in a new film version.
A phenomenon at the time, the show, which starred Canadian actor Jonathan Frid as Barnabas, spawned two feature films in the form of 1970’s House of Dark Shadows and 1971’s Night of Dark Shadows. Additionally, there was the 1991 NBC primetime version starring Ben Cross as Barnabas, which had the unfortunate timing of going against the Gulf War and lost in the ratings, after which many assumed the show would vanish. Which couldn’t be further from the truth, with MPI offering dozens of DVD box sets to release all 1,225 episodes on disc, new novels hitting the bookshelves as well as audio adventures from Big Finish Productions. And, back in 2004, it seemed that there would be a new primetime series from the WB, starring Alec Newman as Barnabas. So assured did this seem that the WB cancelled Joss Whedon’s Angel, feeling it didn’t need two vampire series on the air at one time. And yet when the network announced its fall schedule at the time, Dark Shadows was nowhere to be seen, which proved confusing to a great many people.
Next to Star Trek, it would be difficult to find a 40-year-old franchise that has shown the kind of durability that Dan Curtis’ Dark Shadows has. A phenomenon during its original 1966-71, the daytime soap opera introduced audiences to the Gothic world of vampires, werewolves, witches and more, and made fans of millions, including actor Johnny Depp, who recently announced he would be playing vampire Barnabas Collins in a new film version.
A phenomenon at the time, the show, which starred Canadian actor Jonathan Frid as Barnabas, spawned two feature films in the form of 1970’s House of Dark Shadows and 1971’s Night of Dark Shadows. Additionally, there was the 1991 NBC primetime version starring Ben Cross as Barnabas, which had the unfortunate timing of going against the Gulf War and lost in the ratings, after which many assumed the show would vanish. Which couldn’t be further from the truth, with MPI offering dozens of DVD box sets to release all 1,225 episodes on disc, new novels hitting the bookshelves as well as audio adventures from Big Finish Productions. And, back in 2004, it seemed that there would be a new primetime series from the WB, starring Alec Newman as Barnabas. So assured did this seem that the WB cancelled Joss Whedon’s Angel, feeling it didn’t need two vampire series on the air at one time. And yet when the network announced its fall schedule at the time, Dark Shadows was nowhere to be seen, which proved confusing to a great many people.
[CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE]
